So I thought I would tell about my genetic condition

Well hi there GSB, I suffer from a condition known as Marfans Syndrome. Although, I lie, they're still testing me for it, officially, it's quite obvious I have the disease through many symptoms I show. Even tomorrow I'm going for a blood test, dunno what for, but I am. Coolio

Anyways, Marfans Syndrome is a genetic condition that causes people like me to be tall, really thin and underweight. There's more but I can't think of them right now, or be bothered enough to check it up. (If you wanna take a look yourself, Wiki has an article on it) It also means I grow abnormally fast, faster than I would be naturally growing.

This all started last year February when I started getting chest pains. At first, I ignored them and just let them go away. Eventually when my ex girlfriend dumped me and started turning into a grade A sl*t, I told my parents and doctor about it and it was initially contributed to the stress and depression happening at the time.

At about June last year, the first real large chest pain happened while I was on holidays up the coast. To be precise I was on a whale watching boat =p. This amount of pain was so severe that my mum noticed immediately that I was in a lot of pain and told me to lie down but this made it worse (lol). The residual pain stayed with me for 3 days before fading away.

Upon getting back from the coast, I underwent a series of CAT scans, Ultrasounds, ECG's, X-rays, anything to find out what was causing these pains, but nothing was ever found and the doctors by now were contributing it to Acid Reflux and put me on Mylanta (as a matter of fact, I have a huge box of it still left from these days right next to me). I went to see a cardiologist and he was the first one to mention to me about Marfans Syndrome. I have many of the symptoms of it:
1. High arched pallet in mouth
2. Tall and skinny growth
3. Male (more common in males)
4. Long and flexible fingers
5. Very low weight for a then 16 year old (121 lbs, 55kg)

As a side note, during an Ultrasound on my abdomen where I had pains a few times, the doctors discovered I have no left kidney =p

In December last year though, finally after coming home from a friends house and suffering with an immense pain in my chest for 2 hours on trains and buses (I had left my phone there lolz), my mum took me to Emergency. There we notified the Triage Nurse about looking into Marfans and I was admitted straight away. First x-ray they took they noticed that a "bleb" on my left lung had ruptured and torn open a hole in my lung, which was now leaking air out into my chest and consequently deflating and had fallen away from my chest leaving the space. I was admitted straight away, and quickly operated on in Emergency by inserting a small tube into my chest to drain the air out.

Though I was only supposed to be there overnight, I ended up staying for 13 days. During that time, the drain was not helping my cause at all and they ended up performing keyhole surgery on me to surgically re-attach my lung to my chest by scraping my body causing it to bleed, then using the blood as an adhesive. 5 days after the op, I was home with 4 awesome scars on my body to show from the experience.

Bad thing is, this is likely to happen again, and quite possibly more than just one time. I now have a genetic specialist looking into me and telling me about life with Marfans Syndrome. Lucky I don't have an acute case, so I'm not likely to die from it, but I can't do things I've always wanted to do like scuba dive and parachute out of planes. =(
Heh even as I'm writing this, I have one of those small pains in my chest. =p

Anyways, thank you for taking the time to read this (if you did), I just thought it would be an interesting read to some and thought I'd share it.
Posted on April 21st, 2008 at 12:07pm

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